CLEVELAND: Twenty-three thoughts for 23 points from Kevin Love in Wednesday’s 99-98 win over the Dallas Mavericks…
1. One of the go-to moves for Spurs coach Gregg Popovich is to call a timeout during a game when things aren’t going his way and walk away from the bench. He’ll huddle with his coaches on the floor like all head coaches do, but he won’t return to the bench. He’ll just leave it up to the players to figure out what’s going wrong and how to fix it.
2. This was sort of a “figure out and fix it” moment for the Cavs, who to this point have consistently demonstrated an inability to win when LeBron James doesn’t play. It’s hard to figure since they still have a pair of max contract players and yet another near-max in Tristan Thompson. They have struggled, however, figuring things out for themselves.
3. When James rested at Miami early in the season, while Kyrie Irving was still out injured, Kevin Love flopped with five points and eight rebounds on 2 of 11 shooting. The Cavs trailed by as many as 30 and were blown out on the road.
4. When James sat out a game at Washington a couple weeks ago, Love had 12 points and five rebounds on 4 of 11 shooting. Irving scored 28 points, but much of that came during garbage time after the game had long been decided. This is a team that for whatever reason has been conditioned to struggle when James doesn’t play. That’s obviously not a good formula for the postseason, when injuries or foul trouble can strike at any moment.
5. This time, Tyronn Lue singled out Love and Irving prior to the game. It was on them to figure out how to win a game against a playoff contender without their best player. The results weren’t always pretty. They blew a pair of 20-point leads and without James to take the ball away, Irving dribbled and dribbled and dribbled and dribbled around the court. When he was used as an inbounder in the first half, it occurred to me that’s the only way to ensure Irving makes a pass. If there is a way to dribble the ball inbounds off an out-of-bounds play, Irving will be the one to find it.
6. He scored 33 points and passed for one assist, that coming in the third quarter on a Love 3-pointer that pushed the lead back to 74-54. Then it was right back to dribbling and shooting, dribbling and shooting as the Mavericks whittled the lead down to one possession.
7. Of course, there was the game last season when Irving had 34 points and no assists in a loss at the Utah Jazz. James famously told him afterwards that can’t happen again; he can never go through another game without an assist. So what’s the difference between 34-0 and 33-1? Not much.
8. “I was just doing whatever it took to win,” Irving said. “A couple shots, a couple iso plays that I normally make, they were forcing me to take long jump shots, which I happily obliged because most of the time I feel confident in making those.”
9. To be fair, there is a gray area here. Lue made it clear before the game he wanted Irving and Love to be aggressive looking for their shots. Lue said afterward he had no issue with the way Irving played because he was following orders.
10. “I just told Ky, I need him to be aggressive. I need him to look to score and his aggressiveness will open up his passing,” Lue said. “With LeBron out, we’re losing 25 points. We needed Kevin and Kyrie to step up and score the basketball for us and that’s what they did.”
11. I spoke to James about this in late January, coincidentally following a win at Dallas. James spent all of last season and most of this season trying to get Irving to understand how to create shots for others. Sometimes it seems as if Irving is listening, sometimes it doesn’t.
12. “I just wanted him to understand that he could mean so much more to our team by also being a playmaker for the guys that can’t play-make for themselves at times,” James told me then. “Obviously, he’s able to go through two and three guys every single possession if he wants… My game earlier in the season last year was all predicated on figuring out how to get these guys, and mostly Kyrie, to understand how important it is getting other guys involved.”
13. Most of Irving’s passes Wednesday were early offense passes. They weren’t passes that put guys in position to score and they often resulted in Irving getting the ball back. But was he really just following orders? Lue has been on record previously as telling Irving not to worry about anything but attacking. Again, hard to be sharply critical of a guy if he was just following orders.
14. Matthew Dellavedova had seven of the Cavs’ 21 assists. At one point he had seven of their 12 assists. Dellavedova has proven enough this season that if the Cavs don’t make a long-term investment this summer in J.R. Smith – and from all indications they won’t – we may have reached the point where it’s time to just start Dellavedova next to Irving and end this façade that Irving is a point guard. He’s not. He’s a dynamic scorer. The Cavs play this way for long stretches anyway, and given James’ propensity to play with the ball in his hands, not much would change except for giving away a little size in the backcourt. Dellavedova will be a restricted free agent again this summer and he’s likely to command more interest than he had last summer. If the Cavs want to keep him, it could cost them a significant financial commitment.
15. Irving made what looked at the time to be a critical turnover when he was doubled by the Mavs and threw the ball away trying to get it across the court to Dellavedova. It gave possession back to the Mavericks with 17 seconds left and a chance to tie. He atoned for it when he pulled Dirk Nowitzki out of the way to grab a steal on the Mavs’ ensuing possession and his free throws after Nowitzki was forced to foul clinched the victory.
16. “I was really (mad) at the turnover. It was stuck in my head but I tried not to show it,” Irving said. “We got the switch they wanted. Dirk was trying to post up. I kind of knew he wanted it on that left shoulder and I just tried to force him that way.”
17. By “force him that way,” Irving really hooked Nowitzki and pulled him out of the way for a steal. It appeared the Cavs got away with a foul, which is certainly how Nowitzki and coach Rick Carlisle saw it.
18. “Kyrie magically appeared with the ball. That’s really all that happened,” Nowitzki said. “I know I’m not going to get fined over it. It is what it is.”
19. Added Carlisle: “We got unlucky. There was one whistle we could’ve gotten that we didn’t. That was disappointing.”
20. Love had 23 points and 18 rebounds and re-established himself more in the post. Love has conceded it’s easier for him to work inside when James isn’t in the game. He’s more of a floor spacer when James is playing, but they can play through him more inside when James is sitting. Part of the reason on this night was because of how much the Mavericks were switching defensively on pick-and-rolls, leaving Love in mismatches he could exploit inside.
21. “It’s a learning experience for us,” Love said of playing another game without James. “I think that teams look at when Bron is out and think, ‘This is a game we can grab’ or ‘We hit them in the head and they’ll lay down.’ Tonight we didn’t do that. We came out aggressive and knew that we could take advantage of some mismatches.”
22. The Cavs built a pair of 20-point leads by playing fast and getting out in transition. Lue thought the leads dwindled when the pace dwindled. The Mavericks’ zone defense didn’t help matters. Lue thought the zone hurt the Cavs. Not many teams in the NBA play zone, but none do it better than the Mavericks.
23. Players were aware of the record in James-less games, so this one counts for something. Particularly since it came against a team fighting for its playoff life in the West. No Timofey Mozgov, incidentally, because of the Mavs’ small lineup. It was his first DNP-CD of the season, but he’ll likely be back in the starting lineup Friday. The plan is for James to play in games Friday and Saturday in Florida as well. Talk to you Friday from Amway Center.